Sobbing and sometimes unable to speak, a Plantation teen-ager on Wednesday testified about the night she says a Davie police officer shoved and pinned her with his nightstick, then arrested her for disorderly conduct.

Christina Elisabeth Watchorn, now 17, testified that from a holding cell at the police station she could hear her mother crying in another room.

Her mother, Elizabeth Christenson, after going to the police station to find her daughter, became involved in a brawl with two other officers, leaving her bruised and missing fistfuls of hair, their attorney, William Amlong, told jurors.

In a civil trial that began on Wednesday in federal court in West Palm Beach, Christenson and Watchorn said police officers Richard Smith, Robert Banks and Edward Kraynak Jr. violated their civil rights by battering and wrongfully arresting them. They are seeking unspecified damages.

Defense attorney Michael Burke denied the allegation of excessive force and said the arrests were lawful. Officers grabbed Christenson`s hair to keep her from biting them, Burke said.

Events began about midnight on June 16, 1990, when Smith, providing security at the Galaxy Skateway in Davie, walked past Watchorn and a friend waiting for the friend`s mother to pick them up.

``I said, `Nice stick,``` referring to his nightstick, Watchorn testified. ``And he smiled and acknowleged me and walked off. ... The next thing I knew, he was back in my face wanting to know what I said.``

Another man had told Smith that the girl made a vulgar comment about what he could do with the nightstick, Burke said.

Watchorn denied making that statement, but Smith persisted, Watchorn testified.

After a recess to regain her composure, Watchorn said it was at that point that Smith shoved her against a wall, his nightstick pinned against her collarbone.

Smith said she was uncooperative in answering his questions, and Watchorn acknowledged in court that she became more and more annoyed with the questioning, which she said the officer gave no reason for. She acknowledged that she finally swore at Smith, but only after he had pinned her against the wall.

At the police station, Watchorn called her mother, told her what had happened and said she thought officers were about to strip-search her. She incorrectly assumed she was to be strip-searched because police had called in a female officer, she said.

Christenson raced to the station and demanded to know what was happening to her daughter.

Photos displayed for jurors showed large bald patches on the top and side of Christenson`s head.

Watchorn was booked in the juvenile detention center, but never charged.

Christenson was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer, Amlong said. She later accepted a plea bargain that provided that a conviction not be entered against her, he said.